Five Good Covers Archives - Page 2 of 41

Five Good Covers: “Hush” (Deep Purple)

Posted by Seuras Og at 2:00 pm No Responses »

Jul 192024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

Well, actually not Deep Purple’s “Hush” at all, even if that is the version that cuts most traction. It’s also the only song that lingers from the pre-Gillan iteration of the UK titans, from when they were carved in soap rather than rock. The learned and erudite know that it was written by Joe South, that doyen of southern soul, but it isn’t even Joe South’s “Hush,” as he didn’t get around to putting it out, himself, until two years after the first recorded version, itself a year ahead the Purps. That honor went to Billy Joe Royal, a recording artist for Royal Records, where South was then a jobbing songsmith. Indeed, “Down In The Boondocks,” Royal’s biggest chart success, was also a South composition. But “Hush,” from Billy Joe Royal Featuring Hush, in 1967, did not chart.

However, Ritchie Blackmore, guitarist for Deep Purple, heard that version. He would later tell Vintage Guitar Magazine, “I thought it was a great song, and I also thought it would be a good song to add to our act, if we could come up with a different arrangement…. We did the whole song in two takes.” Despite being a British band, it bombed at home, but soared in the States, reaching number four on the Billboard chart, effectively making their name, even if the singer and bassist were shortly to step aside. Most UK listeners had to wait until the band re-recorded the song, with their new line-up, in 1984.

Irrespective of all that, Blackmore is quite correct in his assertion as to the greatness of the song, and it has racked up a roster of cover versions. Here are the best five, at least today. (Please note this does not include the version by Kula Shaker, as, regardless of the red-blooded interpretation, it is all rather too much in thrall to the Deeps, as I will this time call them, struggling to find a suitably uniform diminutive.)
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Five Good Covers: “A Girl Like You” (Edwyn Collins)

Posted by Mike Tobyn at 2:00 pm No Responses »

Jul 052024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

The United Kingdom woke up to a new Prime Minister on Friday. We don’t yet know what kind of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will be, but we know a little of his music tastes, thanks to a recent profile: “His music tastes are lodged in the mid-80s – Aztec Camera, Orange Juice, Edwyn Collins.” Edwyn Collins?

“Edwyn Collins’s tart cocktail of self-deprecation and self-assurance.” Pete Paphides’ beautiful, magnificent book Broken Greek is a love letter to the music that moves him, regardless of whether it does so for anyone else, or even if others in vast numbers appreciate it. He is not a snob. His musical awakening took place in the late ’70s or early ’80s, so we get some wonderful prose about Orange Juice, the band that Edwyn Collins led before his solo career. Orange Juice’s small output, and fewer hits, nevertheless had a disproportionate influence on music in Scotland and beyond. A recent history and museum exhibit of Scottish pop was named “Rip It Up” after the band’s best-known single. Edwyn Collins had something about him, a big fish in a small Scottish Loch.

After Orange Juice split, Collins continued to be a vital cog in the machine of the Scottish music scene. He produced creditable collaborations with, for instance, Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins and Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera. All recognized his talent, not least himself, but it did not always translate itself to hits.

That changed in 1995 with the release of “A Girl Like You.” The worldwide hit encompasses a remarkable range of Collins’ skills and influences. Those who studied the success of the UK dance phenomenon Northern Soul identified that 121bpm is the most danceable pace for music, leading to dozens of hits at that exact pace in the charts of the ’90s. This song cleaves close to that ideal, and even samples a sixties soul classic.

But there is more. Collins uses a B&M Fuzzbox to achieve the distinctive riff, but enhances the refrain with a clean-sounding vibraphone. Sex Pistol Paul Cook played the drums that are not part of the four-on-the-floor sample. It is a sophisticated musical confection, worthy of the finest Viennese Patisserie. And then there are the lyrics, which add a layer of universality. Who has not started a romance with the belief that their partner is unique? With an unparalleled set of lovely traits, never combined in a single, heavenly creation. That moves everyone.

The song managed to conquer several markets, and chart in many more. It was helped on its way, curiously, by featuring on the critically mauled but subsequently cult film Empire Records. The lyrical message and place in time have enabled it to feature in several more films and TV shows, and have kept the song in the imagination and indie channel playlists ever since.

In 2005 Collins suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, and was near death, and the after-effects of that illness have affected him ever since. However, with the love and support of his family, he returned to music making, including live performances, where his talent and self-belief continue to shine through.

His best-known legacy has spawned many covers; here are Five of the Best of them.
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Five Good Covers: “Take Me to the River” (Al Green)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 11:00 am 1 Response »

Jun 142024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

The Talking Heads cover of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River” has a very solid place in the world of cover songs. Also in the world of Cover Me: the site’s founder and editor-in-chief devoted a chapter of his book Cover Me to it, and on our first Q&A post, when the staffers were asked to name their favorite cover song, that was the response from two of them.
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Five Good Covers: “Pick Up The Pieces” (Average White Band)

Posted by Mike Tobyn at 1:00 pm No Responses »

Jun 072024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

The current iteration of the Average White Band, still featuring original musicians Onnie McIntyre and Alan Gorrie, recently completed their “Final” tour in the UK, although they have upcoming dates in the US. Nearly 60 years after they started jamming together and 50 years since the release of their breakthrough album, featuring their biggest single, the unit will move into Californian retirement.

The JB’s, Booker T. and the MG’s, The Memphis Horns, The Funk Brothers. Justly celebrated horn and rhythm sections. Driven by expert musicianship and camaraderie, they backed a thousand hit records. The Average White Band took an instrumental funk track to number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, recorded blockbuster records by soul legends including Ben E. King, and were sought after as session and touring musicians by the best in the business, among them Paul McCartney and Daryl Hall. They were, of course, different from their heroes and predecessors, American-born legends all.
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Five Good Covers: “Powderfinger” (Neil Young)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 3:30 pm 1 Response »

May 242024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

I just kind of stopped all over.
–The final sentence of After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thompson

Writing a first-person singular postmortem is the sort of project writers take on as a challenge. How to tell a tale when the teller is no longer with us? Where are they talking from? Do they know more than they did? It’s a gimmick, but like all gimmicks it has enough winners to keep people trying it.

Songwriters have taken up the challenge repeatedly, and the best of them – “Long Black Veil,” “El Paso,” “I Come and Stand at Every Door” – have met the challenge with style and grace. Neil Young’s “Powderfinger” is absolutely one of the best of them. The song’s death scene is as brief and vivid as the death itself – “Then I saw black, and my face splash in the sky” stays with you forever after you understand it.

One reason for that: it’s one of the few definite things about the song. Fans have long debated where and when it takes place, and what the song is “really” about. Neil himself rarely lets anyone peek behind the curtain, but did reveal in a 1995 Spin interview that “You may not see the anger, or the angst, or whatever in me lay behind a song like ‘Powderfinger.’ But I’ve seen things in my life that I’ll never forget—and I see them every day. And I see strength that I can’t understand, and weaknesses that I can’t deal with.”
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Five Good Covers: “You Are My Sunshine”

Posted by Seuras Og at 1:00 pm No Responses »

May 102024

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

“You Are My Sunshine” is an old warhorse of a song. It’s been around for so long and in so many forms as to, now, be quite beyond categorization. Until recently it has been unfairly parked under hokey old cornball music for old folk, even if the many cheesier versions out there have deserved and drawn such scorn. I know that I thought it dreadful old nonsense, until I was recently forced to accept and re-evaluate it as a song of some pathos and persuasion. You may still share my earlier view, so I put it to you: Can any of these covers shift that opinion?